Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн
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The US Army soon became High Standard’s main customer and the company responded by outproducing all other suppliers of .50 caliber Browning Aircraft machine guns. This included such giants as Colt, Savage, and General Motors. At the same time they also supplied the army with .45-caliber barrels for the 1911-A1 service pistol and thousands of model HD B .22 pistols for training and recreation purposes. They also manufactured and supplied over 2,000 Model HD-MS pistols equipped with silencers for the Office of Special Services. The OSS guns were used for clandestine operations. Wartime production of High Standard was 228,000 .50-caliber aircraft machine guns.
During the war Swebilius was the second highest salaried citizen in the United States. A congressional investigation revealed that High Standard’s price to the government for the.50 caliber machine gun was considerably less than any of the other contractors for the same gun. Suffice it to say they must have done something right!
After the end of the war, the massive buildup of military equipment slowed to a virtual standstill. At that time, High Standard’s management decided to become a major player in the commercial arms business by increasing their own handgun product line and to establish a long-time agreement to produce an economy line of shotguns and rifles for the Sears, Roebuck Co. Sears was unusally successful in promoting these products through their massive coast-to-coast merchandising network under the trade name of J.C. Higgins. [Editor’s note: “J C Higgins” was not a made-up brand name, like “Betty Crocker” or “Aunt Jemima.” John C. Higgins (1908-1964) was the head of Sears, Roebuck’s Chicago accounting office and their chief comptroller. – DMS]. The agreement with the Sears, Roebuck Company was for them to invest a substantial sum of capital annually in the Research and Development group to design, build, and test new Sears firearms products and to create the new tooling required to produce these guns.